Not As Multi-Dimensional As It Claims
Despite being a highly popular and well appraised series, and despite really enjoying the Uncanny Avengers, this series usually just parks a little in front of mediocre to me, and this book, though better than the last, largely points to why. With a huge focus on something that really doesn't matter, as well as a slow start-up, this book is just alright, with some great stuff hidden underneath a lot of fluff and such.
Let's start with the good; the second and third issue contained here are very well written. There's some great character developments for Wolverine, Angel, and even Magneto, who makes a brief appearance, and it's all surrounded by some nice themeing that makes the individual issues flow nicely. We also see a little progress from Psylocke over the course of the book, but not much, primarily because of a "denial" that is referenced by Fantomex, as he has the whole series, but still isn't really shown to us.
The first three issues of this book slowly works its way to presenting the primary issue, which is generally pretty unsurprising- Remender has been leading us to this moment since day one, so it's nice to finally get there and start exploring it. But, in order to divert this... conflict (for those who haven't figured it out yet, despite the title of the book), the rest of the crew must return to the Age of Apocalypse, an alternate dimension in which Apocalypse has already taken over the world and killed Xavier, causing a crippled Magneto to lead a band of rebel mutants to fight those still loyal to Apocalypse's cause.
And this, the thing where all this has to involve another dimension really irks me. We're presented a lot of characters we already know, but who we now don't really know, who have been arbitrarily combined into weird duel characters, like Iron Ghost (Iron Man/ Ghost Rider), who we are supposed to be invested in, but who don't matter at all, as they aren't a part of the world we are actually following and who will disappear more or less once this storyline is over, and then we're shown they're problems, which, again, we are supposed to get invested in but don't ultimately matter at all. And the book just loves to say, "Hey look, a character who died in the normal continuity! Shouldn't you, I dunno, care about what happens to them?" To which I say, "No, why should I? These aren't the people I enjoy reading about, they're annoying doppelgangers that lack the emotional impact or background that we've grown to see in the other version of you." I think that's the biggest issue; these people all act incredibly differently, as they are of another world altogether, and thus aren't the characters we've grown to see them as. And, though I do support recreating a character or having them change as a person for a story, this isn't that; these are blatant rip-offs, here to fill a void made by this story in particular.
Also, this book loves to use different artists. A lot. The first three issues are drawn by Billy Tan, but the color artists and formatting are switched around between each one that they look widely different at the end, taking on three completely different looks, none of which I cared for immensely. The first is the best by far, as the second has an incredibly rigged formatting for the panels, which became quickly annoying and irritating, and the colors and style in the third made it look completely out of place in this series in particular, and didn't work in general for me. However, Mark Brooks does the latter three issues, which all look relatively the same design wise and who's style at least harkens to the look of issue one rather than doing something completely unfamiliar and different.
I could go on, but this book really just falls into the same mistakes; little character development that really matters, although this has the most as a whole, lackluster art/consistency of art, and a lot that doesn't feel like it adds to the story or matters.
Story: 6/10: Beyond the tidbits where things actually seem to progress, this still feels like just a build up to the final confrontation we can actually experience next volume.
Characters: 6/10: There's some nice work done for most of our main characters here, though minimal, but the book is bogged down by a lot of unnecessary characters that lack any character, and Wolverine's "development" is kind of overdone after the first few pages of issue 11, and the book doesn't let up constantly reminding us, even at the end of issue 13.
Art: 3/10: It's infuriating how often this changed, and none of it looks particularly great.
Rereadability: 5/10: At least I got to re-experience some of the earlier issues, which I remembered nothing about.
Length: 6 issues
Overall: 6/10: Despite some minor character work, this remains meh at best, leaving much to be desired.